23025
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Philosophers should be more inductive, and test results by their conclusions, not their self-evidence [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The progress of philosophy seems to demand that, like science, it should learn to practise induction, to test its premisses by the conclusions to which they lead, and not merely by their apparent self-evidence.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (Explanations in reply to Mr Bradley [1899], nr end)
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A reaction:
[from Twitter] Love this. It is 'one person's modus ponens is another person's modus tollens'. I think all philosophical conclusions, without exception, should be reached by evaluating the final result fully, and not just following a line of argument.
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5845
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Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
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Full Idea:
Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
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From:
Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
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A reaction:
This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue
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